Married?
by smallearthcat
Summary: Wherein Gus gets married, and Shawn has a surprise. Shawn/Gus slash.


Shawn had a real best man speech written, honestly, he did. It was really awesome, too, all about how great a friend Gus was and how glad Shawn was that he'd found happiness with the right person. He'd been all set to give that speech, the words on the tip of his tongue, but what had come out instead was, "Um, Tabitha. I'm sorry, what is it? Tam-? Tammy?" He had no idea where any of this was coming from, but now that it had started, Shawn found it impossible to stop.

His heart was thumping in his chest, and his stomach felt like it was going to explode from his esophagus at any moment, but he couldn't help continuing. "Sorry. I have bad news. Um, Gus can't marry you because..." Shawn paused, feeling for just a second as if he might throw up but forcing himself to stay calm, "he's already married to me."

At that point, Gus was making frantic eyebrow motions, his face all but screaming for Shawn to shut up and not spoil his wedding. It wasn't even as if anything was actually ruined; the wedding was over, after all, and they'd signed the marriage certificate. There was no way this speech was going to make any difference at all, except. Well, except for the part where it was true.

Some might call it underhanded, but Shawn preferred to think of it as taking the opportunity to do what was best for Gus. See, one of the few little-known facts about Gus was that a good dose of cold medication would make him somewhat...malleable. So it had only taken a whopper of a cold and the tiniest lie to get Gus in front of a judge, saying, 'I do.' Of course, Gus had thought he was a witness to someone else's ceremony, and a few miserable days of sickness afterward had caused it all to be an unclear memory.

So yes, technically, they were married (and had gotten quite a few tax benefits out of it, of which Shawn was sure Gus would approve). Why Shawn felt compelled to confess it all after Gus married someone else (rather illegally, Shawn thought, just the tiniest bit gleeful), he had no clue. Now that it was out, though, with Gus' disapproving frown facing him straight on, Shawn had a sudden attack of conscience, and so tried to play it off as a joke.

"I still think we should all stick around and drink all of this alcohol, and eat all of this wonderful food, but at the end of the night, he's coming home with me. And we're gonna sleep in separate rooms."

Shawn stopped there and sat down to an awkward silence from everyone in attendance. Luckily, the maid of honor gave a far more appropriate and moving speech, which set things at ease again, although Shawn could see that Gus was still furious.

The wait until Gus had a few minutes to spare to pull him away to yell at him was painful. Shawn knew he had a limited amount of time in which to come up with a good excuse for what he'd said, preferably something that wouldn't end up with Gus hating him forever. Unfortunately, nothing came to mind, and it was far too quickly that Gus was taking hold of his arm and dragging him into an empty hallway.

"What the hell were you thinking, Shawn? Telling everyone that you and I are married? _At my wedding?_ You know all I wanted was for you to take this seriously. And what did you do? You made it into a huge joke."

"It wasn't a joke," Shawn said before Gus could get any further into his rant.

"Well then, what was it, Shawn? Because from where I was sitting, it sounded like a joke. One in poor taste, at that."

"It was the truth." Gus opened his mouth to object, and Shawn hurried on before he could say anything. "The first part, anyway. The second part may have been wishful thinking."

"What are you talking about, Shawn?"

Gus' tone was calm, calm in a way that Shawn knew was dangerous. If he treated this the wrong way, the best he could hope for was a few weeks without talking to or seeing Gus. The worst? Well, he didn't even want to consider the worst. He hadn't planned on telling the truth - not this particular truth, anyway - but he couldn't see any other way out of this.

"I was telling the truth about us being married." Gus tried to interject again, but Shawn was determined to have his say on this. "I thought it'd be good for us, and when California legalized it, I figured why not. We've gotten some great tax benefits, and the whole power of attorney thing. Plus, who knew you'd find someone else you wanted to marry? It's not like we were getting any younger."

Gus was clenching his jaw so hard by this point that Shawn could see a muscle twitching. Not good.

"Are you telling me we've been married for the past two years?"

"Um, yes?"

"How could you do this to me, Shawn? How could we even get married without my knowledge? And how could you let me marry someone else when I'm already married? That makes me a bigamist!"

"Two is always better than one." That was the wrong thing to say, judging by Gus' expression; Shawn hurried on with his explanation. "You remember that wedding we were witnesses to? When you had that really bad cold?"

"My memory's a little hazy, but they did make a lovely...That was our wedding? You gave me cold medication. You took me to get married when I wasn't working with my full faculties. That's grounds for annulment."

For the first time in the conversation, Gus sounded hopeful, and Shawn's heart sank. "Being married to me automatically annuls your marriage to Tara."

Gus glared at Shawn again. "And whose fault is that? Now," Gus headed down the hall, back toward the reception, "I need to go beg a beautiful woman to marry me. Again."

Shawn watched his best friend/husband/whatever walk away and realized he had no idea what to do. In an act of self-preservation, he fled back to the Psych office a few minutes later.

Shawn hadn't seen or talked to Gus for nearly a month, and what an exhausting month it had been. After the wedding disaster, he hadn't known what to do or where to go. The Psych office had offered little comfort, especially with Gus absent. While Shawn might secretly have hoped that Gus would come after him instead of going back to Tara despite what had been said, he knew better than to expect it. Still, he couldn't quite bring himself to stay away from the office, on the off chance that Gus might show up.

It never happened, but Shawn found himself spending more and more time there, even staying overnight when the drive home just seemed impossibly long. Despite his desperate desire to see Gus, though, Shawn found that he couldn't bring himself to just show up at Gus' apartment. Aside from the fear of seeing Gus and Tara living a happily married life there without him, he discovered that he didn't actually want to try to annoy Gus into forgiving him. That was something that would have to come with time, and probably an apology.

He had a vague hope that Gus would show up at the office or the police station, but time passed with no sign of Gus, and Shawn threw himself further into his work. He took cheating husband cases, communications with dead relatives, and any number of other cases Gus would hate, in addition to whatever the chief offered him. It wasn't ideal, but it was something to do while he waited.

More than once, he thought about running, just packing up and leaving town without a word, like he would have done in the days before Psych. But the hell of it was that he couldn't make himself leave Gus. The only reason he'd really been able to do so before was because Gus left him first when he went off to college. This time, it would be him running, and he couldn't, not without knowing what Gus was going to do about the situation.

When Gus finally made his reappearance, it was at the office at eight in the morning, and Shawn was woken from sleeping at his desk by the thump of a file in front of his face. He jolted up, startled, looking around frantically for possible danger before realizing that it was Gus who had caused the noise.

"Hey, buddy." Shawn tried his best to sound casual, but it was difficult since he'd seen the words 'annulment papers' written on the folder. "How's it going?"

"Tara didn't believe I didn't want to be married to you, even after I had the annulment papers drawn up."

"Well, that's just..." What, ridiculous? Fantastic? Shawn had no idea what he could say that wouldn't piss Gus off.

"She had our marriage annulled and left town two weeks ago."

"Then why haven't you-"

"Come to see you? Why do you think, Shawn? I had to figure out what I was going to do."

"There was some question?"

"Of course there was some question! I've been married to my best friend for two years without knowing it, and my not-wife left me because she thought I was in love with him!"

"And were you?" Shawn hadn't really meant to ask that, despite the fact that he really did want to know, but now that it was out there, he waited impatiently for an answer.

Gus didn't say anything right away, but something felt different. Where he'd been tense when he'd come into the office, he now seemed...embarrassed?

Shawn grinned. "You are, aren't you?"

Gus didn't smile, but Shawn could have sworn he heard the smile in Gus' voice anyway. "Of course I am."

Shawn jumped up and threw his arms around Gus in his excitement, momentarily forgetting all about the month they'd spent apart and the fact that Gus might not have completely forgiven him. Gus' arms closed around him as well, and they spent a long moment just standing there together.

When Shawn finally pulled back, though, Gus still wasn't smiling, and yeah, he totally wasn't forgiven yet. Shawn's smile fell from his face as he put some distance between them, aware of the need to be serious now.

"I really am sorry, you know. Not for marrying you, but for not telling you and then ruining your wedding." Gus' expression softened just the slightest amount, and Shawn knew that they would be okay eventually.

"I could make it up to you. I mean, we haven't even consummated our marriage, and it's been two years!" The corner of Gus' mouth twitched, and Shawn knew he was on the right track. "But maybe we should start with a date. Jerk chicken?"

"You know that's right."

And their new life together began with a fist bump.


End file.
